1. W H I T E PA P E R
Building Console
and Silent Installers
by Robert Dickau
Principal Technical Training Writer, Flexera Software
2. Building Console and Silent Installers
Introduction parameters, or read configuration information from a simple
In a contemporary environment, an end user is likely to find response file.
a number of heterogeneous systems. They will be installing
and uninstalling with different platforms, different operating These modes provide enormous flexibility in your
environments, and different interaction environments. installation, enabling you to give end users a choice of
InstallAnywhere helps you meet the needs of these end installation mode that best meets their needs.
users by presenting installer options that can run in any
number of environments. Console-mode installers enable your end users a non-
graphical user interface structured to enable interaction
Beyond the basic installer wizard, graphical user tools, through text only. Console mode is intended to add support
and variable-based rules, InstallAnywhere offers additional for non-graphical environments such as those common on
options for you to use when building an installer. This white so called “headless” Unix systems. Console mode mimics
paper describes additional installation-related concepts, the default GUI steps provided by InstallAnywhere, and
including: uses standard input and output. The biggest advantage to
console mode is that Unix developers no longer need X
• Console-mode, for command-line-driven installations Windows (X11) to run their installers.
• Silent installations, for working with limited or no user
interaction To enable console mode for your project, you must select the
Console check box in the Installer UI > Look & Feel task.
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Additionally, to enable console mode for a Windows
installer, choose the Console Launcher option for the
Console Installers Install Launcher Type in the task Project > Platforms >
In enterprise-level environments, it is not uncommon for end Windows, pictured in the following figure. Starting with
users to install applications to servers and other remote InstallAnywhere 2009, you can set the default UI mode of
systems. In these cases, a rich graphical user interface the uninstaller independently of the installer.
(GUI) such as that provided by InstallAnywhere’s standard
installer modes is not always desirable. You may find that
your end users will a need command-line interface mode
installer, or even a silent installation that requires no end-
user interaction.
InstallAnywhere Enterprise Edition supports both console-
mode and silent-mode installations. Console mode provides
your end user with a text-only interface, similar to that To run an installer in console mode, the user runs the
found in ANSI terminal applications. Silent mode provides installer with the -i console argument, as in the following:
an automated non-interactive installation mode, which can
either run entirely using the default settings you defined install -i console
in the project, use intelligent logic to determine installation Note: If console mode has not been enabled for your project,
2 Flexera Software: InstallAnywhere White Paper Series
3. Building Console and Silent Installers
the installer displays an error message that begins, “Installer As with graphical panels, the customizer for a console
User Interface Not Supported”. action enables you to modify the text and behavior of the
action in console mode. The default text of a console action
InstallAnywhere does not automatically provide console is generally similar to the text used by the graphical panel,
alternatives for panels you have added to your installer. though slightly reworded to reflect the text-only mode. For
You must provide consoles for each panel that you want example, where panel text might refer to Previous and Next
displayed during console mode. In general, InstallAnywhere buttons, the console action mentions typing “back” to return
console actions provide parity with panels provided in the to a previous step.
graphical mode.
At run time, the console actions display the text you
For example, the Pre-Install task normally includes graphical specified in the respective customizers. For example, the
panels such as Introduction, Choose Install Folder, and console version of the Introduction panel appears as follows:
Pre-Install Summary.
Introduction
---------------------
InstallAnywhere will guide you through the installation of
SampleApp.
It is strongly recommended that you quit all programs before
continuing with this installation.
Respond to each prompt to proceed to the next step in the
To add console equivalents to these graphical panels, installation. If you want to change something on a previous
begin by clicking the Add Action button and selecting the step, type ‘back’.
Consoles tab.
You may cancel this installation at any time by typing ‘quit’.
PRESS <ENTER> TO CONTINUE:
Similarly, the console version of the Choose Link Location
panel appears similar to the following:
Choose Link Location
---------------------
Where would you like to create links?
-> 1- Default: C:Documents and SettingsUserStart
MenuProgramsSampleApp
2- In your home folder
3- Choose another location...
4- Don’t create links
ENTER THE NUMBER OF AN OPTION ABOVE, OR PRESS
<ENTER> TO ACCEPT THE DEFAULT:
You then select the desired consoles and click Add, which Console-mode enables text to be output to the console
places the console actions in the Pre-Install task. It is line-by-line. It does not support formatted text, clearing the
not necessary to insert the console actions next to their screen, or positioning the cursor.
graphical panel equivalents, but doing so can help with
the overall organization. Another approach is to group the Tip: Running the installer in console mode sets the
panels and console actions separately. InstallAnywhere variable INSTALLER_UI to the value
“CONSOLE”. If necessary, you can test the value of
INSTALLER_UI to determine whether any action should run.
Silent Installers
Silent mode, which enables an installer to run without any
user interaction, is fully supported on all Unix platforms. (A
near-silent mode, displaying only progress information, is
available on Windows and Mac OS X.) As with console
mode, you must enable silent mode for your project in the
Look & Feel subtask.
Flexera Software: InstallAnywhere White Paper Series 3
4. Building Console and Silent Installers
To perform a silent installation from the command line, a file. This negates the need for using the additional -i switch
user runs the following command: to the installer executable.
install -i silent Configuring Variables Used in Response Files
In some cases it is undesirable to store property values in a
This command runs the silent installer with all of the project’s response file generated with the -r switch. In the Project >
default settings. As with console mode, the user will see an Info task, you can configure variables to encrypt or exclude
error message if the project does not support silent mode. from a response file.
Using a Response File For example, suppose you have a simple User Input panel
To override the default settings in a silent installation, a user that asks the user to provide a sensitive passphrase.
can point to a response file. A response file contains the
values of InstallAnywhere variables to use during a silent
installation.
To generate a response file, a user runs the installer with
the -r switch. You can also use the setting Always Generate
Response File in the Project > Info subtask. When the installer
runs, it records end-user choices in a file called installer.
properties, stored in the same directory as the installer.
Sample contents of a response file are the following.
# Fri Oct 31 25:00:00 CST 2008
# Replay feature output
#---------------------
# This file was built by the Replay feature of InstallAnywhere.
# It contains variables that were set by Panels, Consoles or In the InstallAnywhere project, the panel is configured to
Custom Code. store the user input in InstallAnywhere variables with the
#Choose Install Folder base name $SECRET_PASSPHRASE$, which means the
#--------------------- variables SECRET_PASSPHRASE and SECRET_PASSPHRASE_1
USER_INSTALL_DIR=C:Program FilesSampleApp3000 both expose the sensitive data.
#Choose Shortcut Folder
#---------------------
USER_SHORTCUTS=C:Documents and SettingsAll
UsersStart MenuProgramsSampleApp3000
Apart from comments (lines that begin with the hash sign
#), the response file contains entries of the form:
To prevent the value from being included in the response
PROPERTY_NAME=Value file, begin by clicking the Configure button in the Project
> Info task, which displays the Configure Variables dialog
A user can manually create a response file or modify box. Click Add to add the names of variables to encrypt
property values inside a recorded response file as or exclude from the response file, along with the desired
appropriate. behavior (whether to exclude the entire variable entry from
the response file, exclude only the value, or encrypt the
When a user deploys an installation, the installer executable variable’s value).
looks for a file called installer.properties or installername.
properties, and if such a file is present reads the property
names and values and uses the specified property values
during the installation. To specify a different file name or
location, the user can specify the desired response file with
the -f switch, as in:
./install.bin -i silent -f /usr/tmp/SampleResponseFile.
properties
The response file can specify the user-interface mode by
setting INSTALLER_UI=SILENT (for example) in the response
4 Flexera Software: InstallAnywhere White Paper Series
5. Building Console and Silent Installers
If you select Exclude Value Only, a user who generates a
response file by running install -r receives the following entries
for the corresponding panel:
#Secret Passphrase
#---------------------
SECRET_PASSPHRASE=
SECRET_PASSPHRASE_1=
Summary
This white paper discussed additional installation-related
concepts such as console-mode and, silent installations.
It also highlighted how InstallAnywhere helps developers
execute best practices for these advanced concepts.
Begin a Free Evaluation of InstallAnywhere
You can download a free trial version of InstallAnywhere
from the Flexera Software Web site at:
www.flexerasoftware.com/installanywhere/eval.
Learn More Best Practices for Building Quality Installations
Join an InstallAnywhere training class – visit
www.flexerasoftware.com/training for available classes.
Also, if you have a critical installation project but are
short on developer bandwidth or expertise, Flexera
Software’s Professional Services team can help. Learn
more at: www.flexerasoftware.com/services/consulting/
software-installations.htm
Flexera Software: InstallAnywhere White Paper Series 5
